The undulatory theory gives also an easy explanation of colours; they being, according to the theory, only the effects, as already stated, of the different rates of vibrations of the ether. If the ether particles perform 514,000,000,000,000 oscillations in a second, we receive the impression we call red colour; if they execute 750,000,000,000,000 vibrations, the impression produced on our organ of sight is different—we call it violet; and so on. Thus science teaches us that visual impressions so different as red, green, blue, violet, and other distinct colours, are, in reality, all due to movements of one and the same——something; and that the different sensations of colour we experience, arise merely from different rates of recurrence in these movements. In the subsequent article we shall have occasion to show that ordinary light, such as that of the sun, or of a candle, contains rays of every imaginable colour, mixed together in such proportions, that when this light falls upon a piece of paper, or upon snow, we have, in looking at these objects, the sensation of whiteness. But, if the light falls upon any substance which is able, in some way, to absorb or destroy some of the vibrations, the admixture of which makes up “white light,” as it is called, then that object sending back to our eyes the rays formed of the remaining group of vibrations, gives us the sensation of colour. Suppose, for example, a substance to be so constituted that it is capable of absorbing, or quenching in some way, all the vibrations of the ether which occur at a quicker rate than 520,000,000,000,000 in a second: such a substance would send back to our eyes only the vibrations which constitute red light (see table, page [411]), and we should say the substance in question had a red colour. Similarly, if the substance gave back only the vibrations which have the quickest rates, we should call the substance of a violet character. The agent which produces in our visual organs the impression of colour is, therefore, not in the objects, but in the light which falls upon them. The rose is red, not because it has redness in itself, but because the light which falls upon it contains some rays in which there are movements that occur just the number of times per second that gives us the impression we call redness; in short, the colour comes not from the flower but from the light. “But,” the reader might say, “the rose is always red by whatever light I see it, and therefore the colour must be in the flower. Whether I view it by sunlight, or moonlight, or candlelight, or gaslight, I invariably see that it is red.” Now, it is precisely this circumstance—the seemingly invariable association of the object with a certain impression—in this case, redness—that leads our judgment astray, and makes us believe that the colour is in the object. Most people live out their lives without anything occurring to them which would give them the least idea that the colours of the objects they see around them are not in these objects themselves, but are derived from the light that falls upon the objects. And it required the comparison of many observations and experiments, and some clear reasoning, to establish a truth so unlike the most settled convictions of ordinary minds.
The point in question is fortunately one extremely easy of experiment, since we have simple means of producing light in which the vibrations corresponding to only one colour are present. The reader is strongly recommended to try the following experiment for himself. Let him procure a spirit-lamp, and place on the wick a piece of common salt about as large as a pea. Let the lamp be lighted in a room from which all other light is completely excluded, and bring near the flame a red rose or a scarlet geranium. The flower will be seen with all its redness gone—it will appear of an ashy grey or leaden colour. A ball of bright scarlet wool, such as ladies use to work brilliant patterns for cushions, &c., held near this flame, is apparently transformed into a ball of the homely grey worsted with which, about a century ago, old ladies might be seen industriously darning stockings. The experiment is, perhaps, even more striking when, a little distance from the spirit-lamp, is placed a feeble light of the ordinary kind, a rushlight for example. The ball of wool, held near the latter, shows vivid scarlet, but, brought near the spirit-lamp with the salted wick, is pale, ashy grey. Moving thus the ball of worsted, first to one light then to the other, gives a most convincing and striking proof of the entire illusion we are under as to colour being an inherent quality of substances. Similar experiments may be multiplied indefinitely. A bouquet, viewed by the rushlight, shows the so-called natural colours of the flowers; viewed by the salted flame, roses, verbenas, violets, larkspurs, and leaves, all appear of the uniform ashy grey, and only yellow flowers come out in their natural colours. A picture, say a chromo-lithograph after one of the most gorgeous landscapes that Turner ever painted, appears a work in monochrome, and gives exactly the effect of a sepia or indian-ink drawing. The most blooming complexion vanishes, and the countenance assumes a cadaverous aspect very startling to persons of weak nerves; the lips especially, which might have rivalled pink coral by ordinary light, take a repulsive livid hue. All these effects may be seen to greater advantage by using the gas-flame of a Bunsen’s burner, having a lump of salt placed in the flame; or by means of a piece of fine wire gauze, about six inches square, supported about two or three inches above an ordinary gas-burner, from which the gas is allowed to issue without being lighted, but when to the top of the wire gauze, which is strewed with small fragments of salt, a light is applied, the gas will ignite only above the gauze, without the flame passing down to the burner below.
A fuller explanation of these strange appearances may be gathered from the subsequent article; but it may suffice now to state that spirit, or gas burned in the way we have indicated, gives off little or no light of any kind. If, however, common salt be introduced into the flame, then light—but light of only one particular colour—is given off, and that colour is yellow. There are no red, or green, or blue, or violet vibrations given off; and as the objects on which the light falls cannot supply these, it follows that with this light no impression corresponding to these colours can be produced on the eye, whatever may be the objects upon which it falls. Such experiments, not simply read about but actually performed, cannot fail to convince an intelligent person that the colours come from the light and not from the object. Of course, it is not denied that there is in each substance something that determines which are the rays absorbed, and which are the rays reflected to the eye—something that can destroy certain waves, but is powerless over others that rebound from the substance, and reaching the eye, there produce their characteristic impressions. And it is but this power of sending back only certain rays among the multitude which a sunbeam furnishes, that can be attributed to objects when we say that they have such or such a colour. In this sense, then, we may properly say that the rose is red, but it is also at the same time undeniably true that the redness is not in the rose.
Let it not be supposed that such scientific conclusions as those we have arrived at tend in any way to rob Nature of her beauty, or that our sense of the loveliness of colour is in any danger of being blunted by thus tracing out, as far as may be, the causes and sources of our sensations. The poets have occasionally said harsh things of science—indeed, one goes so far as to stigmatize the man of science as one who would “untwist the rainbow” and “botanize upon his mother’s grave;” and another thus laments dispelled illusions:
“When Science from Creation’s face
Enchantment’s veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!”
Now, in the case we have been considering, the scientific view is surely as beautiful as the ordinary one. We can, it is true, no longer regard the objects as having in themselves the colours which common observation attributes to them, but we look upon the material world as being, so to speak, the neutral canvas upon which Light, the great painter, spreads his varied tints, although, unlike the real canvas of an artist, which is not only neutral, but receives indifferently whatever hues are laid upon it, the objects around us exercise a selective effect—as if the picture of Nature were produced by each part of the canvas refusing all the tints save one, but itself supplying none. The tendency of the study of science to increase our interest in the great spectacle of Nature, and to enhance our appreciation of her charms, has been more justly indicated by another poet—thus:
“Nor ever yet